Jamaica’s election

Go, sista

Sodom and Mrs Simpson Miller

TO HOLD an election on December 29th, sandwiched between Christmas and New Year's Eve, always seemed odd. But Andrew Holness, Jamaica's new, young, prime minister, wanted his own mandate after succeeding Bruce Golding as head of the ruling Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). For his whimsy, the voters duly deprived him of his job, after a mere ten weeks. They gave a landslide victory to Portia Simpson Miller, whose People's National Party (PNP) took 42 of the 63 seats.

In office since 2007, the conservative JLP had grappled with Jamaica's twin scourges of economic stagnation and violent crime. Mr Golding's government entered a standby agreement with the IMF, but proceeded to miss most of the targets, especially that for trimming the public-sector wage bill. A three-year recession has technically ended, but growth has been mainly in bauxite mining and has been imperceptible to the public. In May 2010, under intense American pressure, Mr Golding sent police and troops into Tivoli Gardens, the stronghold of a leading gangster and JLP supporter, Christopher “Dudus” Coke. The operation left 73 civilians dead, many of them apparently shot in cold blood. The murder rate has come down, but it remains frightening by any non-Jamaican standard.

The pollsters had predicted that Mr Holness would cling to office. The JLP's campaign pilloried Mrs Simpson Miller as a half-educated incompetent. But “Sista P”, as she is known, got the best of the campaign debate. In what the Gleaner, Jamaica's main newspaper, calls a “largely homophobic” country, she courageously said she would not continue Mr Golding's ban on gays in the cabinet, and would allow a parliamentary vote on a colonial law against the “abominable crime of buggery”. Clive Mullings, the JLP energy minister, warned that “God brought down fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah”. He lost his seat.

Some in the PNP reckoned this election might have been a good one to lose. Mrs Simpson Miller promised to preserve public-sector jobs and remove the tax on electricity bills. Negotiations with the IMF—the agreement runs out in May—will be bruising. In August Jamaica will mark 50 years of independence from Britain. In 1962, it was as prosperous as Singapore. In a poll last year, 60% said they would be better off if the island were still a colony. Sista P's honeymoon will be brief.